Timeline (Failure of 1850)

1850

September

Efforts to end the conflict between the Northern Free States and the Southern Slave States begins to falter when the third measure to determine the issue of slavery in both the New Mexico and Utah Territories is defeated by the closest of margins (88-94) over the proposal of Popular Sovereignty. Abolitionists from the North called it a victory, while the Southern states realized that, having given up on the issues of the introduction of California as a free-state and abolishing the Slave Trade in Washington, D.C., they would not be given anything in return. The effort to pass the Fugitive Slaw Law is defeated when the Southern congressmen add a number of provisos that would make it even stronger, going so far as to say that any black person caught in the North could be returned to slavery, even if they were born free. This outrage makes the all Northern members of Congress, including a senator each from Maryland and Kentucky, vote against the measure. The Compromise of 1850 has been destroyed.